Canon

365 Project: A Photo a Day

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In order to motivate myself to spend more time with cameras, I’ve decided, somewhat on a whim, to begin the “365 Project.” Each day for a year, I will take at least one photograph digitally, develop them through post-processing using Lightroom and Photoshop, and publish them in a set on Flickr.

This will give me an excuse to try new lighting techniques and, in some cases but not frequently, use post-processing effects to add a touch of creativity. I’m a big fan of realistic looking photographs rather than adding fake aged-print or cross-processed looks, so if I do add some effects, I’ll try to stay faithful to the content of the image.

Here are some of my favorites so far.

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The R Factor at Rider University

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As part of my Photographic Essay course at the Arts Council of Princeton, I was tasked with creating a set of photographs with an underlying theme or narrative. I was looking for a topic somewhat esoteric, but my creative mind just wasn’t functioning well during this particular time frame. I narrowed my choices down to something related to the Delaware and Raritan Canal or a singing competition show supported by Reid Sound at Rider University. Even after starting with the latter, I kept an open mind and prepared to take the photographic essay in a different direction to protect against the possibility that I could not spam the entire event from start to finish with enough images to tell some sort of story.

The event moved forward, and I committed myself to the project. “The R Factor” mimicked the popular television show “The X Factor.” More than twenty student performers from the university auditioned for a chance to make the final performance. I started with these auditions, taking photographs to document the progress of some of the performers as well of the event itself.

The photography presented the usual challenges. Stages and auditoriums are dark locations, and a spotlight can easily throw off metering. I pumped up the ISO to compensate for the lighting. In the hallways where performers were waiting and warming up before the final performance, the fluorescent lighting played with the color balance.

There is a good amount of talent on the Rider University campus. The R Factor did a great job of showcasing some of the school’s best performers. Here are a few images from the events; more photographs are available on Flickr, many of which were not included in the essay. A slideshow of the essay follows these photos.

The R Factor at Rider University: Auditions

The R Factor at Rider University: Auditions

The R Factor at Rider University: Interviews

The R Factor at Rider University: Backstage, Semifinals and Finals

The R Factor at Rider University: Backstage, Semifinals and Finals

After the jump, I present a slideshow representing the photographic essay in its current form. The essay as a whole is relatively successful, telling the story of the event, although I did not use any text for narrative.

Catherine Short de Arce at The Grand

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Last Tuesday, I ventured back into my college state of Delaware for the first time in many years. After broadcasting a request for models among my friends on Facebook several months ago, one of the gracious responses was from Catherine Short de Arce, a friend of mine from the University of Delaware. Cathy was a vocal music major when we attended, and she followed this passion and is now a successful opera singer. At the bottom of this post, I’ve included one of her recordings.

We scheduled the photo shoot in Wilmington’s Grand Opera House, a great venue for dramatic images featuring an opera singer. The Sarah Bernhardt room, where we set up and shot almost all of the photographs, was a perfect location. Cathy came fully prepared with a team to help with her hair and make-up, as well as a representative from the department store Boscov’s to help with the various outfits provided by the store.

This was my first attempt bringing my portable equipment on location. I traveled with a Canon 1D Mark III, with an XTi for emergency back-up, and two Bowens Gemini monolights with umbrellas. For lenses, I brought a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro, and Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 IF EX DG HSM AF, but used the 24-70mm almost exclusively. I also had a variety of accessories to help with the shoot, like PocketWizards for triggering the strobes and a white/silver reflector.

I learned quite a bit from the seven hours I spent at the Grand Opera House. Here are a few of my take-aways.

  • The details are important. Some problems, like a fire alarm on the wall, can’t always be cropped out of the frame. I need to keep my eyes open. Even a piece of tape to hold fabric on a couch can ruin a shot.
  • I need to watch angles and proportions when using wider angles. On camera, it could look like an interesting perspective, but once I can really look at the image, I might be distracted by feet or hands in the corner of the frame.
  • It’s important for the model to feel at ease. I probably could have done more to help Cathy feel comfortable and relax.

Post-processing is an important part of modern photography. Film purists often don’t like PhotoShop because they believe the skill of a photographer is in getting the best picture in camera. It’s always good to strive for getting the best capture, but even the best film photographers worked creatively with chemicals and dodged and burned the exposure when printing. In PhotoShop, I take the time to reduce the appearance of shiny skin, make sure there is the level of contrast I expect, and make sure the colors most accurately reflect the colors as seen by human eyes — all things even the best digital sensor doesn’t do well.

Update! I have finished finalizing the photographs from this shoot. You can see a select set of photographs in my portfolio, and here’s a slideshow. Following the slideshow are a few photographs from the shoot prior to processing.

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Converting Dining Room to Studio

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I don’t have much extra space in my living room, so as I’ve become more involved with photography, I’ve had to made some decisions. I’m currently taking a Light and Photography class at the Arts Council of Princeton, and my goal for the next few months is to increase my experience dealing with light. On Sunday, I picked up some lighting equipment, and the only suitable location in my apartment for setting up the equipment is the dining room.

B&H Photo and Video is now richer, while some items formerly in their store now find their home in my apartment. I purchased inexpensive floodlights, a two-strobe kit (Bowens brand, 800 watt-seconds total, with umbrellas), three PocketWizards, and a backdrop set-up.

As part of assignments for the class, I spent some time experimenting with different placements of the floodlights and strobes. I’ve been using this as a chance to get used to using the equipment for the first time. I discovered that I don’t want to use the strobes at full power, particularly when the space I have available for the “studio” is about eight feet by eight feet.

I chose three photos from this first session to share. The set is on Flickr and I’m including the photos below, as well.

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Back to City Streets With TheGoodLife

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I found myself trekking through the snow back to East Windsor last night to listen to TheGoodLife and relax with my friends. With the blessing of Bryan Douglas, keyboardist extraordinaire, I brought my new-but-used Canon 1D Mark III for its first legitimate shoot. (While I did resolve to have two shoots a month, the weather in January has been foiling my plans.) The night was not without challenges.

As I mentioned last time I wrote about TheGoodLife at City Streets, this cafe-slash-bar is not the best location for producing flattering photographs, particularly when colored spotlights flash unpredictably. I have found, however, that my own flash will overpower the spotlights, even when the flash is bounced off the ceiling. It’s this bounce that helped product some of the better photographs from the night.

I stayed only for the first set this time, and managed to produce about twenty images that I consider publishable. I’m including a selection here, and the rest are available in this Flickr set.

In previous shoots, with the Canon Digital Rebel XTi, I got the best images by setting the aperture to f/1.4 to allow the fastest shutter speeds at a high ISO, leaving off a flash entirely. I didn’t feel I was getting the same results with the 1D Mark III last night, so I opted to mount a flash on the camera, the Canon 430EX Speedlite Flash. In a more perfect setting, I would have positioned the flash differently, but to increase maneuverability in a crowded bar with drunk dancers dangerously close, I kept it simple by mounting the flash directly on the hot shoe. The most flattering images came from bouncing the flash off the ceiling.

Of course, I’d prefer not to use a flash at all if there were any chance it would distract the performers.

A few non-flash shots were acceptable, as well, but the 1D Mark III did not want to grab focus as easily as the XTi, making non-flash shooting slow.

Some post-processing work was required. For the non-flash shots, I adjusted the white balance and improved the color levels. For the flash shots, not much color correction was necessary, but I did a little work to remove the “shiny skin” effect. One of the most difficult aspects of photographing a singer is trying to avoid making someone appear as if they are preparing to eat the microphone. I’ll have to try to convince Reid Sound to provide the singers with wireless headset microphones.

All shots were taken with the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens. Continue reading this article to see a selection of the photographs.

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Thanksgiving in Temecula, California

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A few nights ago, I returned from visiting my family in California for Thanksgiving. I had a great time spending time with my brother and sister-in-law earlier in the week; one of the highlights was hiking at Echo Mountain outside Pasadena. For Thanksgiving, my brother departed for his in-laws’ home in Texas, and I stayed in California to visit Bill’s parents’ house in Temecula.

Along the way to a great Thanksgiving meal, we took some time to drive around Lake Skinner outside Temecula. There wasn’t too much to see; camping and fishing are the area’s favorite activities, and there weren’t many people around due to the holiday (and the chilly weather).

You can view a few of the better photos after the jump or view the set on Flickr containing more from Lake Skinner (and a nearby farm) as well as the hiking photos from earlier in the week. For these landscape photographs, a graduated neutral density filter would have helped in order to keep more detail in both the sky and the water. The problem with buying filters is that my variety of lenses have a variety of filter thread sizes, so the process of getting the right filters can be complicated and expensive.

With Canon’s professional lenses, I understand most lenses have the same filter thread size of Φ77mm, so was I upgrade lenses, I’ll develop a full set of filters.

I’m now back in New Jersey, ready to get back to work.

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Hiking at Echo Mountain, California

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Almost every Thanksgiving, I visit my family in California. I was able to spend a few days with my brother and sister-in-law, and we packed those days with a number of activities. We spent a few hours hiking the Sam Merrill Trail to Echo Mountain. It was a tough hike for me — a reminder that I could use more exercise.

The weather was beautiful, however, and the views were amazing. I brought a small contingent of my photography equipment with me on the hike, including my Canon Digital Rebel XTi and two lenses: the 17-85mm and 70-300mm. I used only the shorter zoom, leaving the longer telephoto in my backpack for the entire duration of the hike.

My brother brought his new iPhone. The phone contains an amazing little camera that automatically combines three exposures to create an HDR image. The result is quite interesting, and someone could have a lot of fun with that feature.

I added the three best photos to Flickr, but I’ll include all three here as well, after the jump.

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TheGoodLife at City Streets

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Earlier this year, my first attempts at concert photography produced a lot of garbage. City Streets Cafe in East Windsor (New Jersey) is a bar and restaurant that has become the home for Bryan Douglas’s band, TheGoodLife. The band performs covers of today’s hot hip hop and pop music. I suggest seeing the band this coming Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, at City Streets in celebration of their first anniversary. I’m going to try to make the show, but I’ll be flying back from Los Angeles earlier that day and may not make it in time.

Getting quality photographs is a struggle at this venue. Like most bars, it’s dark, and with the band’s colorful and hyperactive lighting set-up, you never know what color you’re going to get. In the future, I’ll need to look out for stray spotlights.

Particularly with this shoot, it’s evident that the photographer’s job is not done once the memory card is full and the lens cap is placed back on the lens. My first attempts at post-processing shots from City Streets did not result in normal-looking final products. You can see some of the earlier attempts in the Flickr set linked below.

My post-processing skills have continued to improve though I’m still working on developing (get it?) the best methods.

View some of the selected photographs after the jump.

For the full set — not the full full set, because that would be about 1,200 photographs over three nights — take a look at the best 81 shots in this set on Flickr.

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Portraiture Class

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A few weeks ago, I completed a class at the Arts Council of Princeton on portraiture, conducted by Peter C. Cook. Most of our class time was spent talking about portraiture, looking at photographs created by famous and non-so-famous individuals, and critiquing each other’s work.

We did, however, spend two sessions working with a model and one session in the darkroom developing our own black and white photography. This was my first opportunity to work with a model and my first time in a darkroom in the last twenty years. The last time I developed my own work was when I took a short session on black and white photography at summer camp as a kid.

I hope the model, Rebecca, doesn’t mind that I’m posting a few of my better shots (after the jump). My XTi produced the less appealing of all the photographs, so I won’t include them here. The best photographs came from my medium format Holga with black and white film and my Mamiya RZ67 Pro II with color negative film.

For the full collection, view the set on Flickr.

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Central Jersey Walk for PKD

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In early October, I supported my friends Stacey Trzesinski McClain and Randi Trzesinski with their efforts with the PKD (Polycystic Kidney Disease) Foundation. Stacey organized the Central Jersey Walk for PKD as she does every year, and I brought my camera along.

I prefer shooting outdoors if the weather is nice, so this was a good change from the indoor concerts. It was a little chilly that day in Mercer County Park, but it was a successful event with good participation. Walking undoubtedly kept the participants warm. As you can see from the photographs, the walk is a family event. Teams walked together at this event as a culmination of fundraising to support the organization.

My XTi was on call for the event, and I used a variety of lenses (28mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8, 10-22mm, 17-85mm). See some of the results after the jump.

Most of the better photographs are being displayed on the PKD Foundation’s Flickr page.

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